Recent project: Memorial box for a family dog

My in-laws lost their beloved black lab Dakota or “Koty” as we called him recently. Koty was a trained/licensed therapy dog who spent hundreds of hours in his life visiting nursing and retirement homes to comfort residents. In the weeks before his passing Koty had been suffering from severe arthritis to the point that he could no longer climb the stairs to sleep in my in-laws bedroom. The night before he passed he climbed the stairs and laid down at the foot of their bed and passed in his sleep.

They say all dogs are good dogs but Koty was one of the best dogs I’ve ever had the good fortune of meeting. After he passed I was granted permission by my in-laws to have the honor of creating a box to store his cremains.

I first modeled the box in sketchup:

Once I was happy with the design I made the box out of some figured walnut and maple off-cuts that I had from another project. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures during the build so I only have pictures of the finished product. The box is constructed out of mitered walnut sides, supported with maple splines for strength. The trimming is all hand made out of maple.